White Sands

One of the great locations for southwest landscape photographers is White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Miles of white gypsum sand dunes interspersed with lone yuccas, solitary footprints, a little of both, or nothing at all. It is a high-key paradise for minimalists.

But you gotta work for it. A road leads into the park, but the nearby dunes are covered with tracks, human tracks I mean, and lots of ’em. It makes for a cluttered visual mess.

So you gotta hike. The deeper you hike into the dunes, the farther you get from the tourists who don’t want to stray too far from their Big Gulps, and you get more and more isolated. I like to hike a mile or two into the dunes and pitch a tent, so I am surrounded by little evidence of man. The tracks in this image are mine.